


Phases of an Azure Moon

by ofcourseitsanorange



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Time Skip, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:55:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28177989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofcourseitsanorange/pseuds/ofcourseitsanorange
Summary: The Kingdom Army has secured a narrow victory at Gronder, but all is not well. Bodies need burying, loyalties are strained, and a prince’s ghost still haunts the monastery grounds. The Blue Lions realize that marching forward will mean looking back.
Relationships: Annette Fantine Dominic/Felix Hugo Fraldarius, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/My Unit | Byleth, Ingrid Brandl Galatea/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	1. Prologue – Wind, Flower, Sun, Moon

They say the goddess is all things. She is the sun above. She is the land below, rich with the sowers’ new seeds and the wildflowers returning from winter. She is the last of Fodlan’s most unyielding winds, those that only start to still beneath the Great Tree Moon and carry dreams of spring. This year they carry her, too. Could the goddess really be this new professor’s vacant stare? The prince is not sure; they also say that Her hands receive all, but even if She offered one he would not know how to grasp it.

The sun shines brighter during the Harpstring Moon. Light filters through stained glass windows and onto the library’s time-worn pages. They tell stories of ivory-clad knights that many from Faerghus can recite by heart. Ingrid is devoted to them. Felix wants to tear them to shreds. When the moon wanes, both have watched life leave a man’s eyes. It is not like the stories and songs, but Ingrid does her duty all the same. The prince is no stranger to killing, but it still makes him feel cold. For the first time, the professor feels the same chill.

Students relish the warm winds that the Garland Moon brings. Tradition compels some to romantic gestures. Sylvain receives garlands of white roses and watches them rot on his shelf. Ashe is purely concerned with penitence and prayers for the treasonous lord he has come to regard as a father. Each day he returns to the same cathedral pew, straining for piety but just wanting to go home. Mercedes joins him when she comes to pray, lending an ear and warm words. She understands this remorse.

The sun is growing stronger now, and the Blue Sea Star seeks to exceed the moon’s light and increasingly short nights. The star heralds the goddess’s rebirth. Mercedes busies is herself with the celebration to come. _It would be nice to be reborn_ , she thinks when guilt and images of Emile eat her insides. Fraught with suspicion and prone to sleeplessness, the prince wanders to the terrace on the eve of the ceremony. He finds his professor admiring a halo in the sky.

“These are very rare,” she tells him. “My father calls them moon boars but Hanneman says they’re paraselenes.” Her eyes are alight and the prince’s mistrust melts.

“Downright mesmerizing,” he says. He forces his gaze on the sky.

The Verdant Rain Moon brings fierce winds that ruin the flowers. Annette clings to Mercedes while they march to Conand Tower. She watches her father and wonders if he sees her. _Please care about me_ , she prays. Sylvain severs the head of the monster that was Miklan and suddenly he is drowning again, flailing, and screaming for his mother, for Miklan while well water fills his lungs. The Lance of Ruin is his to wield now. It is heavy in his hands.

It is the Horsebow Moon and autumn has come too soon. When no one is looking, Dedue admires the garden perennials and thinks it is nice that the coming cold winds will not kill them – not really. The professor brews warm tea for her students, meticulously memorizing their favorite blends. They are her first friends, she tells her father. She does not know how she spent those lonely years without them. For the first time, they see her smile.

They prepare to march to Gronder on the last sunny day of autumn, before winter winds will start biting. During the Wyvern Moon they must follow the footsteps of the students who came before them and of the soldiers who came before them into battle, trampling over flowers with horse hooves and boots. Annette knows the fight is just practice, but she still feels uneasy. She has shared the most beautiful of three seasons so far with the foes she must now pretend to fill. She wonders is that is the point. After their victory and the subsequent banquet, it seems to matter little. The prince is quieter that evening, trying in vain to commit every in-joke and “Remember when…”, to memory. He knows that they are fleeting but he still hopes that he can hold them for just a little longer.

The flowers are dead now and hueless leaves fly furiously through the courtyard while the students return from class. For one glorious night they forget their studies and dread of the coming mission to view the season’s last hint of red. It colors the moon as it eclipses the sun. The same red lines the prince’s eyes when he is smothered by rage. The mangled screams from Remire are so very much like the ones he has tried in vain to suppress. A boy cries for his mother and now the voices the prince once heard only in dreams are urging him onwards, towards a revenge he does now how to grasp. Only Felix recognizes the man revealed by rage. He does not hide his disgust.

Too quickly, sleet, snow, and the Ethereal Moon Ball are upon them. They agree to meet again in five years. Perhaps because the year’s end is nearing and with it the comfortable rhythm of life they have all grown accustomed to. Perhaps because they are already feeling it slip from their grasps. When the professor is watching her father die, they know that it has shattered. For the first time she is crying; she did not expect tears to be so warm or to fall so freely. She did not know that she could hurt so fiercely.

They say Saint Seiros appeared during the Guardian Moon, carried by the sun and strong winds to bring relief to suffering souls. The story sounds absurd to even the most devout among them now as they reflect on what they have lost. The professor feels that only the prince can understand her. He has told her about Duscar and how death spared only one member of his family, a girl who now regards him like a stranger. He knows the rage that comes with grief, understands that the wrongs done to her must be rectified if she is to avoid being buried by the past.

“I will follow you until the end,” he says. “Whatever the end may be.”

If swayed by only mortal whims, rage would have been their professor’s doom. Yet she returns to them, bathed in sea green. All her witnesses know that they are not magnificent. Long ago, Saint Seiros received a divine revelation from the goddess and was gifted with Her power. The goddess sent Seiros to defeat the King of Liberation; they say was evil and mad with power. The prince is well acquainted with the story.

The professor is the closest thing to sun they see once the Pegasus Moon brings long nights and bitter winds. Perhaps they are all only imagining the divine light that seems to eminate from her now. Maybe they are swayed by the archbishop, who calls her _Enlightened One_. Only Felix thinks that both are lost to them. The others all agree that the professor is still herself and that their prince is not just rage. Their belief is steadfast, even in the unearthly light of the Holy Tomb; even when Edelgard regards them all like strangers; even when he flails ahead of them like animal, leaving a bloody path behind them; even when he can no longer hear them beneath the will of the dead.

Only Dedue notices that the flowers have returned. They are all too busy sharpening swords, penning letters to loved ones, and finding ways home to grieve what is about to be lost. They tell each other that it is not a goodbye. The Lone Moon looks beautiful on the night that they fail.

* * *

Wind, flower, sun, moon. The prince remembered them, once. The boar has devoured him now. Whispers of a one-eyed beast follow his footsteps. The commoners say the scattered corpses cannot be the work of a human: only an animal could claw a victim’s eyes so horribly or carve such brutal slashes into throats. He wanders before the whispers catch up to him. One night, a paraselene in the sky causes him to stir.

“She’s alive,” he tells the waning moon. She must be – she has not come to haunt him yet.


	2. Gravekeeper

When the sword sank into his father’s chest, Felix’s thoughts stilled. The sensation was unpleasantly foreign: for nine years it was always Glenn and for the past five Annette’s damned voice had occasionally interrupted his brother’s one-way conversation. Now there was just a dull ringing that muted the screaming; the sound of his boots against grass; and heavy, strained breathing he realized was his.

His father was not dead. The presence of death weighed one down and Felix was flying away, watching his body running forward frantically from above Gronder Field. The presence of death felt like drowning: Felix had learned what that felt like when a wave struck him while he was waist deep in the Fraldarius Sea. Skinny and small for his nine years, he was held under by the wave’s swell and could only struggle while his lungs cried out for air. The strength had nearly left his thrashing limbs when his father’s arms found him and pulled him to shore. For months after Felix’s lungs felt pregnant with memories of salt water. He was drawn back to the waves eventually; Glenn was a strong swimmer, and Felix loved following the footprints his brother left in the sand as he ran to the shore.

Glenn’s death was the same way. When his armor was brought before his father, Felix felt his lungs fill with salt water all over again. No one needed to say that the rest of him – flesh, silver eyes, long legs that had chased Ingrid and were the last of him left above water before he dove into the sea – had been lost to flame. He had watched as his father absorbed every detail he could find in the steel plates with long, searching looks before they buried them in the ground beside Felix’s mother.

Before then, Felix believed he knew death from the stories and songs he recited by heart. They spoke of death like it was just him, Sylvain, and Dimitri pushing Ingrid into the river on a rowboat. When they were children, Ingrid would always insist on playing the role of the brave knight fallen in battle. She would wear flowers in her hair and pretend to sleep in the buoying boat while the boys pretended to wail until they grew bored and went into the water to retrieve her. Ingrid would rise from the boat, smiling proudly at having played her part so well. Felix had agreed: she always died like a true knight.

His father was still not dead. Felix was sure of it: even as his father fell to his knees and raised a hand to cradle the boar’s cheek. The boar was bleeding too, but the red staining the grass between them did not come from his wounds. Felix stumbled, throwing himself into the crowd of surviving soldiers that had formed around the two.

“Please,” he heard himself say in a voice that was not his own. “He’s my father.”

No one seemed to hear. Masses of bodies closed in on each other, pushing and shoving each in shared panic that perhaps their king was dead, that perhaps the long, bloody battle had not been won after all. Stumbling and peering over the heads in front of him, Felix watched the Sword of the Creator plunge into the back of the failed assassin and heard the girl scream when the blade left her body. The professor lifted her eyes to the sky once the girl collapsed, like a penitent sinner in prayer.

“Please,” Felix pleaded once more to the bodies around him that only continued to slam into him as though purposely pushing him backward. Felix desperately shoved a soldier aside and finally fell forward, bracing himself before he collapsed face first into the grass.

He was separated from his father now by mere feet, but Rodrigue’s gaze stayed fixed on the prince. He held the boar like a body pulled from the tide, as tenderly as he had Glenn’s armor before it went into the ground. He spoke his last words to the boar, but even straining Felix could not hear what they were.

* * *

Felix’s mind was still far away from his body. It was something else that compelled him as he stormed through the campground. He heard Ingrid call his name and felt her fingers touch his hand but he swatted her away with more force than he meant, like an animal. He should have felt ashamed. No one else dared to approach. The faces he passed were featureless and the ringing where his mind used to be smothered the moans of the grieving and dying.

The healers had quickly set to work on embalming his father’s body. The boar had demanded as much before he disappeared into the forest. Their tent reeked of it and the rest of the dead. The reality of it all should have enraged him but he was quiet, numbed like the wounded who had no hope of making it. Annette said the healers offered those people flasks of a liquid that was meant to dull the pain. “A small mercy,” she called it. “To let them spend their last moments in some peace.”

When their losses were heavy, Annette felt a duty to help with the healing, although Felix thought her ill-suited for that particular burden. She was not like Mercedes, whose talent for faith magic came as much from her willingness to open her heart as it did her acceptance of what she could not change. Annette wanted to fix everyone; she needed all her little gestures to matter somehow.

He found her outside the healers’ tent, sitting on the ground with her head in her hands. Noisy sounds of sickness came from within, but she still stirred when he neared. Her hair was windswept and tangled and in the last light of the setting sun it looked like fire. His tongue felt suddenly too large for his mouth. Standing before her, he felt the shoulders of passerby brush against him. He did not need to look to tell from their too-loud laughter to know they were men with women on their arms, on their way to celebrate and to sleep.

“Annette,” was the most he could finally rasp. Evidently, it was all that needed to be said. She rose and hesitantly took her hand in his, her palm still warm with faith magic.

“I was wondering where you were,” she said with more hesitance than he was used to. This was not the first time they had found each other near nightfall, whether in their tents or in the decrepit dormitories they once used as students. Those times had felt easy and quaintly mundane. Sometimes they spoke, Felix always thankful that Annette did most of the talking because he was a poor conversationalist and because her voice sounded so pretty. On good nights she spoke about songs, reason magic, and Mercedes. On worse ones she spoke about her father through hiccups and bitter tears. On other nights neither of them said anything at all: one would simply press themselves against the other and Felix would fall to asleep to the steady rhythm of Annette’s breathing.

He tried not to feel guilty for pretending in those moments that they were something more than two bodies yearning for warmth. He felt repulsive now with her arm in his own, letting her stroke her fingers against his knuckles as he led her to his tent. The kinder part of him wanted to leave her be. They had killed their old friends today and Felix knew that Annette was too sympathetic to sweep that fact out of her mind. But Glenn was still not speaking to him and he needed to drown out the ringing, so he let his greed win out.

He wanted her to sing but was too proud to ask. He did not take her either, the way Sylvain did women they encountered on scouting missions in Gautier and Fraldarius, before the rebellion had begun in earnest. Instead he let her cling to him while he lied there silent and shaking. She never asked him to share more than the angry curses he heard himself mutter. A few times she said his name, dipping it in honey and making it sound like a song.

The shame did not come until daybreak when he found her still sleeping beside him. He wanted to pull her small body closer to his and suck more solace from its warmth. The thought nearly made him shudder: his greed horrified him. Mercifully, she did not stir while he untangled himself from her to stand up and dress.

He left camp before it could come to life again with the bustle of squires packing up convoys, clerics tending to the wounded, and mourners burying the dead. He needed to train. The others would want him to rest, but the thought made him squeamish.

Five years ago, when they came to Gronder for the Battle of the Eagle and Lion, Felix had found a clearing in one of the surrounding forests. He had stolen himself away before the mock battle began while the professor and the boar busied themselves with the minutia of strategy and raising morale. He retraced the old footsteps now, feeling relief at the sight of the familiar place and the knowledge that it had not been imagined. Swinging his sword at imaginary foes had as little use now as it did then, but it was the idea of progress that mattered. Felix could spend hours swinging blades, lost in thought with the conversations in his head.

“I thought I might find you here,” said Sylvain.

The unexpected noise made Felix start. His sword slipped from his grasp and fell onto the dirt with a soft thud. “Sloppy,” Glenn would have said. Felix agreed. He had trained too hard to be caught off guard so easily. He turned to see Sylvain leaning against an oak tree outside of the clearing.

“Thank you for the interruption,” Felix spoke sharply, not yet ready for the task of summoning softer words.

“No need to come running to me,” said Sylvain, dramatically throwing his hands in the air. He stepped further into the clearing. Felix continued to glower as Sylvain reached down to retrieve the sword, accepting it begrudgingly from his friend’s outstretched hand.

“Why did you come?” asked Felix, ignoring the sarcasm.

“I couldn’t help but notice your absence. Breakfast felt just a tad too cheery this morning.”

“I highly doubt that. Camp still reeked of death this morning.”

Sylvain frowned sheepishly. “Professor Byleth is holding council within the hour,” he said, getting to the point at last.

“I think I can manage to find my way back before then.”

“You sure? Seems like sparring with your imaginary friends is going to tie you up for a bit.” Sylvain’s smiled faded as Felix continued to stare and made no move to give a reply. “Look, it’s fine if you’re not up for it today. We just wanted to make sure you were –”

“I’ll be at the council,” said Felix. “And who’s _we_?”

“You know, all of us.” Felix continued to glare. “If this is about Ingrid –”

“I take it she’s the one who sent you?”

“She just said that she saw you come this way,” explained Sylvain, pretending to ignore Felix’s loud scoffing. “I couldn’t get her to give up night watch yesterday. I’m not sure she even slept. She means well – she’s just worried.”

“I’m aware,” muttered Felix. “Have you finished your errand, then? You can tell her I’m fine.”

“I didn’t come on an errand,” sighed Sylvain. Felix began to lace a reply with the venom in his mouth until Sylvain swung his lance. Felix acted out of instinct, raising his sword to meet the blow. Steel met steel with a familiar clank. “I was just hoping we could spar.”

Felix obliged. Sparring with Sylvain was like facing his shadow. He could read Sylvain more easily than he could anyone else and Sylvain was just as familiar with his own instincts. At best sparring could only be an illusion of the rigor that came with real battle, but this exchange may as well have been rehearsed, like a child’s game of pretend. Felix’s mind drifted from the fight at hand and he repressed the urge to wince at how he used to beg Dimitri to reenact chapters of The Sword of Kyphon. He was always Kyphon and the Dimitri always Loog, Kyphon’s dearest friend and the one who would be king.

“This is worthless,” said Felix. “You’re going easy on me.”

“You wound me, Felix,” he proclaimed in mock offense, lowering his lance. “I was giving it my all.”

“It’s not as though you’ve ever cared about your lance-work.

“I care enough to come out of real combat alive. But this is just training.” Sylvain pointedly wrapped the tip of his lance in a leather covering he pulled from his pocket. “If I needed to kill you, I could. But I don’t intend to let you die without me.” With a smile that might have been sincere, Sylvain turned to walk out of the clearing down the path he had come.

“As if you could kill me,” Felix sneered as he made to follow.

The clearing was not far from the outskirts of camp. They found Ingrid waiting for them there, pretending to be preoccupied with feeding the pegasi. She saw them shortly after they did her and soon a flash of blonde hair had collided into Felix.

“I’m sorry,” she said. The hug was heavy and uncomfortably tight. “I can’t begin to imagine –”

“It’s fine,” said Felix. “Really.”

The condolences continued leading up to the war council.

“I wish there was a right thing to say,” Ashe offered quietly. “I’m just sorry that you have to go through this. It’s not fair.”

“I am sorry for your loss,” added Dedue.

Between tending to the wounded and dead, Mercedes had somehow managed to prepare him a pot of Four Spice Tea. “It seemed like the least I could do,” she said with one of her inhumanely sweet smiles. Felix handed the pot over to Ingrid to get rid of as soon as she retreated back to the healers’ tent, biting back to urge to ask how she had persuaded the professor to make space for something so frivolous in the convoy.

Engaging with the well-wishers prolonged what would have normally been a short walk to the central tent. By the time he arrived behind Ingrid and Sylvain, it was nearly full. Battalion leaders and other high-ranking officers occupied the seats around the long table while others crowded around the sides. Scanning the faces in the room, Felix still half-expected to see his father. The reminder of his absence would have cut deeper if some part of Felix did not still anticipate his arrival. Besides his father, only the professor and the boar were missing. Seteth and Gilbert sat on either side of two chairs they typically took at the table’s far end. They seemed engaged in a serious conversation, gesturing at the wooden pieces scattered atop the map of Gronder Field that was spread across the table. The formation of the pieces was just as it had been when they met here the night before the battle. Blue-painted carvings of lion heads still stood in a triangle facing a ballista and complex formations of eagles and bucks. Felix thought he saw Annette meet his gaze and pointedly lowered his head, leading Ingrid and Sylvain to unoccupied places at the opposite end of the table.

They all rose when the professor entered, though she urged them to be seated again with an awkward, familiar wave of her hand. The empty place at the professor’s side where the boar should have been hung over the room.

“Professor Byleth,” spoke Gilbert with a deep bow his head. “I bring you a report.”

“Good news, I presume?” The professor’s expression was as impassive as always, but Felix had long since learned to glean the intention of humor from that slight upward tug at the ends of her lips. “We’ve won, haven’t we?”

“Narrowly,” Gilbert said bitterly. “Our scouts have confirmed the retreat of both the Alliance and Imperial forces. The Emperor is almost certainly marching back to Enbarr. So long as Gronder remains in our control, our path to her is straightforward. But own losses were not insignificant. I am sure you are aware that we have lost considerable military strength and resources.”

“And many good women and men,” murmured the professor, her voice sinking to sorrow. Felix silently thanked her for not meeting his gaze.

“Indeed,” agreed Gilbert. “As things currently stand, taking Enbarr will prove difficult.”

_Taking Enbarr will prove impossible_ , thought Felix. He considered _death wish_ to be an equally apt description of the task before them.

“Are there no lords we can rely on?” asked the professor. If she found their strategic situation dire, her expression gave no indication.

“The Alliance’s losses were heavier than even ours,” said Gilbert. “Our sources say Claude is marching his remain troops to defend Derdriu. Whether or not they are sympathetic to our cause now, it is doubtful that they have the means to aid us.”

“And what of our allies in the Kingdom?”

“House Gautier has no men to spare,” Sylvain said astutely. “I sent a messenger to my father this morning, but the situation in Faerghus is still precarious. Dividing our forces in Fraldarius and Gautier would jeopardize what little strength we still have there.” Felix could not help but stare while Sylvain spoke, still not used to the stately tone that sometimes colored his voice.

Ingrid nodded. “War has only worsened matters for house Galatea. The people would never agree to – _I_ would never dream of trying to rally forces there now.”

“We still have soldiers stationed at Garreg Mach,” said Gilbert. If we had them brought here…”

A shadow stretched over the table and seized the words from the Gilbert’s mouth. Felix did not need to turn to tell from Gilbert’s reverence and the professor’s warm smile that the boar had arrived. He stared all the same; the beast before them all but commanded attention. Even now he found it fascinating and oddly affirming how much the man had changed. He was no longer the player poorly performing the role of a prince, masking a penchant for vengeance with those tired, empty platitudes. Since his return, the boar was only rage: sometimes it erupted in screams and demands for Edelgard’s head, but it mostly just simmered, shielded in shadow.

Felix expected him to storm past him towards the empty the chair as he typically did when arriving late to war councils. Instead he stood unmoving before them, his one eye wide like a boar’s between archers.

“You should be resting, your highness,” said Dedue, the first among them to speak. As expected, only he and the professor seemed unaffected by the boar’s cold, imposing presence. “Your wounds are still healing.”

The boar shook his head, the low rumble of Dedue’s voice seeming to startle him out of whatever fear had paralyzed him. “I am well, I assure you.” Felix frowned, perturbed by the boar’s apparent lucidity. Even the lap dog was not always spared from his bite. “More importantly… I have come to request a moment of your time.”

_Spit out your business and run back to the woods_ , Felix wanted to say.

“I will not have you march on Enbarr,” he continued. “I intend to take back the kingdom capital.”

The professor’s soft smile grew, Gilbert and Dedue both nodded deferentially, and the rest of the tent erupted in whispers. Only Felix bolted to his feet.

_“Are you mad?”_

The whispers suddenly ceased, turning to stunned stares pointed at him. Felix paid no mind, his incredulous glare directed solely at the boar. He was met with something that looked like sorrow and felt his resolve harden.

“I have allowed my people… _our_ people to be swallowed by the Empire.” The boar was focused on Felix, but spoke as though his words were a speech. “For five years they have suffered while I turned by back on them. I know now that I must right that wrong. I intend to save those people. To do so… it is the only way I can atone for my sins.”

“You don’t intend to save anyone.”

“Stand down, Felix,” Gilbert warned. “You’re still just trying to save your own soul. Is that not why we all marched here to begin with? My father died for you, boar. And now you mean to tell us that the dead have told you something different and drag us down to the eternal flames with you again?”

_“You are talking to your king!”_

“How do you intend to atone for my father’s death?”

“Halt, Gilbert.”

Gilbert, who had risen with narrowed eyes set on Felix, sunk back into his seat at the boar’s command. Felix stayed standing, straightening his posture as if challenging the prince to demand the same of him.

“Felix.” The boar let the name linger. Felix recoiled at the sound. The prince had not addressed him directly since a time Felix would have to strain to remember. Was it the journey home after Garreg Mach fell? Sometime before the doomed battle even began? “I can only begin to understand the suffering I have caused you,” he continued, face twisted in what would have been pain in the expression of another. On him it was merely a mockery of emotion. “I cannot tell you how sorry I am. I realize words are not enough to repent but…” The boar tightened his gloved grip on Areadbhar. “I fear they are all I have.”

“Save your empty words for someone who cares,” snapped Felix. “They mean nothing to me.” Felix shoved his chair towards the table, causing the wooden carvings that Byleth had positioned meticulously on the table to clatter.

“Felix, _please_ ,” pleaded Ingrid as he stormed toward the tent flap. The boar appeared nearly as broad as he was tall lurking in front of it, blocking out the sunlight. Felix glowered when he approached, trying not to feel small as the boar towered over him.

The one-eyed beast peered down at him curiously. His lips parted as if to speak before he evidently thought better of it. In one heavy, lumbering movement, he stepped aside. Sparing one last biting glare, Felix accepted the opening. He made sure that he was out of sight before he ran, his sight blinded by tears.

* * *

The boar led the army back to Garreg Mach the next morning. Felix rode near the back of the party and Sylvain lingered nearby, despite Felix’s best efforts to deter him.

“How are you feeling?” asked Sylvain.

Felix shrugged. “Fine,” he said. He was grateful to not feel Sylvain staring, waiting for him to offer anything more. After killing Miklan, Sylvain had not worn his grief either. Only Felix and Ingrid seemed aware of the apathy that came to color his typical recklessness the rest of the summer and all through the fall. Felix had worried that his friend’s sincerity would never return, that he would simply collapse in a puddle of sex and wine on his way back to the monastery.

Most of the others were riding too far ahead for Felix to see clearly. When the terrain was flat, Felix thought he could make out the outline of the boar’s massive furs. He could only presume that the figures the large silhouette rode between were the professor and Dedue, as loyal a lapdog as ever. At the journey’s outset, Ingrid had riden ahead to join them, nearly as elated as Gilbert at their king’s apparent return.

Annette trailed far enough towards the middle of the party that Felix could identify her with certainty, although the red hair certainly helped. She rode with Ashe and Mercedes, engaged in the same disbelieving conversation that had started at the war council. Sometimes she would look over her shoulder, always in his direction. Felix was not sure if it was coincidental or if she could tell he was staring. Each time he looked away.

“What do you get out of women who don’t want you?” Felix asked when Annette nearly met his gaze for a fourth time. Sylvain laughed almost as hard as he had when they were still students.

“Well I haven’t met a woman who didn’t want me yet,” said Sylvain with a thin smile.

“Right.”

“I’m glad you agree.” Sylvain leaned closer to nudge Felix’s shoulder. “What do you get out of women who don’t want you?” He snickered when Felix resorted to silence. “Ah, so we have more in common than I thought. I should have known. Girls love the brooding, silent type.”

“Shut up.” Felix flared. Sylvain laughed again and Felix could not help but feel a continued wave of relief. It was nice to know that something had not changed.

One of the more inconvenient consequences of death, Felix thought, was everyone’s collective uncertainty over when it was acceptable to get on with things. It was why Felix was thankful that the boar had made Rodrigue’s burial a pressing concern instead of a prolonged affair. The ceremony was as extravagant and well attended as circumstances would allow, both facts that Felix thought bitterly would have made his father quite pleased.

He stood with Ingrid and Sylvain in the graveyard of Garreg Mach as the casket was lowered into the ground. Glancing over at Ingrid, Felix could not help but wonder whether she was grieving for his father or for the proper funeral they might have had in better times. As a child she had gleefully watched the processions of knights that preceded Faerghus’ funerals. After Glenn died that joy had turned to the same sort of reverence she now regarded the boar with. Felix did not try to brush the thought aside, though he knew it was unfair.

Ingrid did not weep. She rarely did. “ _True knights are made of stiffer stuff_ ,” she had recited at Glenn’s funeral. It became a mantra in the months that followed the Tragedy of Duscar. Felix wondered if she was remembering it now, staying stony faced while the professor stumbled through the religious proceedings. She softened slightly when Sylvain wrapped an arm around her waist. Felix felt him looking in his direction but hardened his focus on the pile of grass and dirt that now covered his father’s body. Too many sets of eyes were focused on him now and he feared they shared the same obnoxious pity. Felix blamed them all for the knot in his throat.

Days passed slowly after that. Mercedes brewed more pots of tea and left them outside his door. Ashe and Dedue took turns making stews with whatever the kitchen had on hand while they waited for grain shipments from Gronder to arrive. The professor left the Cardinals’ room only to fish and take meals, devoting the rest of her time to strategizing their hopeless mission to retake Fhirdiad. The boar joined her when he was not lingering in empty hallways and courtyards with his head in his hands.

Felix had hardly spoken to anyone besides Sylvain since arriving. He was still too embarrassed to look at Annette and Ingrid’s strengthened determination to do the duty she owed her king made him nauseous. As for most of the monastery’s other residents, Sylvain said that they were afraid of him.

“Because of the outburst,” he explained. “At Gronder. Their words not mine.” Hoping his irritation masked his disbelief, Felix did not ask for further details. While he thought that ‘outburst’ was an unfair representation of the events that had unfurled, holding an extended conversation about even his own reputation sounded torturous. His blade was always better spoken he was, even when his swordplay was as unfocused as it was, all feeling and no focus. Sylvain had bested him more times than he cared to admit since their return to Garreg Mach. Felix’s thoughts were elsewhere, leaving him little room for quick considerations of his opponent’s next moves, even one as familiar as Sylvain. He could hear Glenn chiding him for being so slow on the uptake and would have been more upset with himself had he not missed the sound of his brother’s voice. Before it returned, Felix had worried his memories of it would start to fade like the finer details of his brother’s features.

Felix was sorely disappointed the day Sylvain met him at the training grounds without a lance in his hands.

“The professor wants to see you,” he said. “Lucky, huh?” he added. Felix chose to ignore Sylvain’s stupid grin.

Walking through the monastery still felt like dreaming, even now that the initial shock of returning had waned. Garreg Mach had certainly seen better days and five years tended to change people even in the best of times. Yet in many ways he still felt like he was retracing the same footsteps. Were he more devout he might have wondered if their return to this place was some form of divine punishment: perhaps the Goddess saw it fit to damn them ceaselessly to the same, painful mistakes.

The professor was at her desk when he entered and greeted him with as much warmth as one could expect from her. “I have something for you,” she said plainly when entered. Felix could appreciate her perpetual directness. “It’s from your father.”

“The old man couldn’t find it in him to make the delivery himself?” asked Felix. He raised his brows and tried to swallow his surprise.

“It’s not that. It isn’t quite a delivery, at least not in the traditional sense.” She rose from her desk and turned to the cabinet behind her. Her hair was greasy and shaggier than usual, an odd contrast from its ethereal, sea-green color. “You’re welcome to take a seat, by the way. I’ve been meaning to invite you here for tea anyways, but I –”

“I’m not interested in empty words,” said Felix, more harshly than he intended. “It’s fine. Really.” “I’m not interested in them either,” the professor said as she turned to face him again, holding a sheathed sword. “But not all words are empty. There were some that helped me after my father died. I know that I am no great orator, however.” She frowned at the last sentence and seemed to be searching for something more to say. Felix thought that most found the professor plenty persuasive, but at the moment he was more interested in the weapon she held than in whatever lesson she had intended to convey.

“What exactly is this not quite traditional delivery, then?”

“It was given to me to give to someone else,” explained the professor, ignoring his confusion. “Rodrigue trusted me with it. And now I’m trusting it to you.” She held the sword out to him with comic stiffness. His interest replaced with unease, Felix accepted it reluctantly.

“Good to know the two of you were so close.” Felix hoped that his surprise at the sword’s weight went unnoticed.

“I suppose you could say that,” said the professor, her smile strained. “We generally spoke about you.”

“And I’m sure the old man had nothing but glowing praise for me,” muttered Felix. He unsheathed the sword, softening at the sweet, familiar, hiss that accompanied the act. Forged from silver, the weapon was a thing of beauty. He turned the blade slowly to admire its bright blue sheen.

“It’s an interesting weapon,” the professor said eyeing the sword’s wide, flat tip. “It won’t poke holes between armored plates, but it can easily hack a man’s head off.”

“The Sword of Moralta,” was Felix’s murmured reply. The weapon had been something of a legend in the castle when he was younger. Fraldarius wielded it during the War of Heroes. It had belonged to his father. It should have been Glenn’s. “They say Kyphon wielded one like it,” he continued, the words spilling out in a torrent.

“How does it feel?”

“Fine.” Felix gave the sword a slow, steady swing. It felt heavy and awkward in his hands. “I’ll have to work at it,” he added honestly.

“I’ll practice with you,” the professor declared with a nod. Felix eyed her skeptically. “I’ll make time.”

“Maybe,” said Felix, unwilling to meet her gaze. “The last win I notched against you was a narrow one.”

“True. I almost had you.” The professor smiled softly, as though remembering their duel in the training grounds before they marched for Gronder. “You’ve grown stronger since we first met.”

Felix shrugged. “I would hope so. It’s been five years.”

“Even so, I… am proud of you.” At that Felix tightened his hold on the sword, muttered his thanks, and rejected the professor’s second offer to stay longer for tea.

“We march on Fhirdiad within the month,” he said. “I can’t let myself grow too comfortable.”

The professor offered another small smile. “I expected as much. Expect for me to train with you again soon.” The words made Felix wince, but he managed a nod. With a promise to keep her updated on his progress with the Sword of Moralta, he left. The new weapon felt awkward and heavy at his side. Most of all, he could not shake the feeling that it was not meant for him. Felix’s swordplay was swift and sudden; the sword at his side was made for hacking off heads and limbs in slow, heavy, fells. The way Glenn fought, Felix could not help but think. Each time they had fought Glenn had easily knocked the training sword out of Felix’s grip. In those deals Felix was still too slow too dodge his blows.

_I’m not anymore, though_ , he told himself storming back through the monastery halls and towards the training grounds. _And I’m stronger too_. Felix could not hear Glenn’s voice affirm his agreement, but Felix would prove it to him either way.

His determination turned to cold rage as he neared the training grounds and heard the noise from within. The familiar sound of steel striking training dummies echoed over and over again, accompanied each time by a pained, strangled grunt. Upon entering he found the boar alone in the grounds, swinging his lance with the strength of a beast and the care of a child.

He knew it would not do to interrupt the beast in this state. Still he could not bear to lower his gaze, too engrossed in the spectacle before him. So Felix waited. As he stood there watching the boar, old memories intruded his thoughts. In their youth, the boar had swung his lance with the same clumsiness while pretending to be Loog at the training grounds in Fhirdiad. Playing with his Loog as Kyphon had been a reprieve from the fighting Felix felt himself so ill-suited for. The feeling came back to him vividly now: he could almost feel the burning of wooden swords against skin and the breathless pain of punches from older, taller boys. He had been nothing like Glenn, who came to him each time he was left in a puddle of defeat. “Things started making sense when I started getting stronger,” Glenn told him once. “So don’t stop getting stronger.” He had picked him up then and handed him a new sword. “And don’t look back.” The games of Kyphon and Loog had slowed after that and ceased completely after the prince returned from Duscar. Felix remembered watching the boar in the training grounds when he and his father visited Fhirdiad. The boar had not even seen him, demolishing whatever he could with the same monstrous strength he bore now.

“You’ll ruin your lance like that,” Felix said finally, when the memories grew too intrusive to tolerate. Though Felix spoke quietly the boar somehow heard him, stilling and turning instinctively to the source of the intrusion. Only now Felix noticed how pale the boar was, watching as his animalistic fear melted away and his wide, lifeless eye blinked away tears.

“Felix,” he said, straightening as though that would return his dignity. “I – how are you?”

“My father is dead,” answered Felix. “And now I get to watch more people die in your war.” The boar looked wounded, as though the assassin at Gronder had killed him instead. For a moment, he resembled a man.

“I’m sorry to have disturbed you. I’ll leave you be.” With a deep bow he made for the door and in doing so moved closer to Felix. Felix made no move to step aside.

“Before you go,” Felix began before the boar could leave. “You owe me an answer.” At that the boar lifted his head, somehow appearing desperate to meet Felix’s narrowed gaze while also straining to do so.

“I never meant for Rodrigue–”

“I don’t care about your penitence,” Felix interrupted. He stepped further into the training grounds, closing as much distance between them as he could stomach. “Sometimes you have an animal’s face, contorted with anger and bloodlust. At other times, a man’s with a friendly smile. Tell me, which is your true self?”

The boar stood in stunned silence until a thin smile touched his face. “I wouldn’t expect you to waste your breath on questions with such obvious answers. They are both my true face.” He paused as if expecting a response, but Felix only gripped his sword hilt. “My father, my friends, Glenn, Rodrigue… they all meant a great deal to me. And they were all slaughtered. I alone survived. If I do not shoulder the anguish and regret they must have felt, who will?”

“So that’s how you justify your atrocities.” Felix laughed coldly.

“What do you mean?” asked the boar, expressing confusion that made Felix’s blood grow colder.

“ _I will fulfil my duty to the late king_. My old man used to say that over and over, like a mantra. How nauseating. No one seems to understand. The dead won’t acknowledge your loyalty. They don’t care. What a load of bunk it is, pretending to serve a corpse. You’re serving your own ego.”

“You are wrong.”

“No, I’m not. The dead are dead, the living are living. You have to respect that boundary. If you keep stringing gravestones around your neck, you’ll snap.”

“Even still… I cannot forget them, nor can I let them go.”

“Then keep those thoughts to yourself. If you’re too weak to do that, abandon your throne. Become a gravekeeper.” Wanting his words to hurt, Felix angrily wiped away the tears that were now in his eyes. “I’m not immune to emotion, you know. Far from it. I haven’t gone a day without questioning why my father and brother had to die, while I survived. I’ll bear this pain until the day I die, but I refuse to wallow in it. I have more important things to do than blubber for my whole life.” Felix’s vision was blurred with rage but he heard a soft chuckle from the boar before him.

“You know, Felix, you really are growing more and more like your brother. Always so sarcastic and constantly looking for a fight. But deep down inside, more than anyone, you –”

“What are you getting at?” Felix wiped away more tears to better see the boar’s nearly unreadable expression. His one eye studied him as Felix quietly willed it to look away.

“It’s nothing. But allow me to thank you. Your perspective has opened my eyes.”

“Not my intention,” Felix said coldly. “I couldn’t stand the pathetic look on your face. That’s all.”

“I see. If you say so, then we will leave it at that.” The boar walked towards and then past him, his heavy footsteps sounding behind Felix. Without the boar in sight, memories overwhelmed him again. He remembered his father’s words to him after Glenn died and Felix was a second son no longer. “You will be the Shield of Faerghus,” he had said. “And you must do your duty.” To the king, Felix had thought then. His father had done that duty: now he was dead. Ingrid would do hers soon, too, always throwing herself into the thickest part of the fight and Sylvain would surely follow if guilt and wine failed to drown him first. Even Annette could fall eventually, wanting so badly for one of her gestures to mean something. For all of their troubles each would earn the honor of becoming a new burden of the king, a new ghost edging him towards the next bloody battle. _Perhaps the boar can wallow in those burdens_ , thought Felix. _But I am no gravekeeper_.

“Dimitri,” he said without turning. The footsteps ceased and a long silence lingered over the room. “You must win. You know that, don’t you?”

“I do. And I swear on my father’s lance that we will prevail.”

He lingered for long while, but Felix refused to look back, refused even to unclench his fists until the footsteps had finally faded. When at last he was alone, it occurred to him that perhaps he would die too. The idea did not sound so terrible and the realization terrified him.

Felix stayed in his room throughout dinner, alternating between brooding and throwing things at the walls. He did not leave again until night fell and the monastery halls were lit only by torchlight. On light feet, he laid the sheathed Sword of Moralta outside the door of the Cardinal’s Room. Already he felt lighter, but he could not shake the feeling that he had lost something, or else left it behind.

He heard footsteps down the hall and steeled himself for his half-prepared plans to fall apart before they had even begun. He had anticipated as much, too busy convincing himself of the idea to bother reading an excuse for attempting what rightly looked like treason. He had only wanted to get it over with before he could change his mind again. Instinctively, he reached for the steel sword at his side until the source of the sound was near enough to be revealed by torchlight.

“You weren’t in your room,” Annette said softly, her face lit up in red. Beneath the cloak she pulled tightly around herself she wore a high collared ivory nightgown that was short enough to expose some of her skinny legs. Felix looked away.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he replied. “I wanted to go for a walk.”

“I’ll join you,” she spoke brightly. “The moon’s nearly full – we can see it from the cathedral.”

Felix shook his head. “You should rest.” “I can’t. I’ve been lying awake all night – that’s why I came to find you.” She turned down the darkened hall, turning to give an irritated look when he began to voice his protest. “Stop arguing before we wake Seteth,” she hissed.

Without a proper fight in him, Felix followed, straining to see her through the fragments of flickering light. He was grateful for the moon when they stepped outside, outlining her silhouette and urging him to come closer. As promised, it shone brightly through the hole in the cathedral ceiling.

“It will be full in two days,” explained Annette with her neck craned towards the sky. “I’ve finished most of the really interesting Reason books in the library already – the ones that are still left, at least. So I’ve been reading up more on Astronomy and trying to pay better attention to the sky every night.”

“Astronomy seems an odd jump from Reason.”

Annette shrugged and Felix could not help but notice that the motion caused her nightgown to slip slightly off her shoulder. “It’s a way to keep track of time. And I think it’s nice to know that there are certain patterns out there.” As Annette spoke Felix felt a chill from below. When he looked down he saw Annette aimlessly conjuring wind magic in her palm. “The stars will look exactly like this a year from now,” she said as though that were an explanation. “Maybe then we’ll all be here again, after the war.”

Felix felt his breath catch in throat, her words burning like a blade buried in his shoulder. “Annette,” he said in a low voice. “We cannot win this war.”

Annette stifled her magic with a final whisper of wind. “We can!” she insisted, turning her attention from the hole in the ceiling to look up at him instead. “We _will_.”

Under different circumstances Felix might have found Annette’s stubbornness endearing. She fought with the same reckless obstinance, forcing herself to the frontlines as if sheer willpower alone could keep her alive. “The Emperor has the strongest army in Fodlan behind her,” he said.

“But when we take Fhirdiad –”

“Even _if_ we take Fhirdiad,” he corrected. “Your king still doesn’t know what he’s fighting for.”

“He’s your king too. He’s fighting for his country. We’re fighting for _our_ country, Felix.”

“He’s fighting for gravestones. He wants to clean his own conscience – that’s all. But he’ll never be able to. So he’ll keep going and going and eventually he’ll fail. And then if you haven’t already fallen before then, you’ll die. All of you will.”

“All of _us_ ,” corrected Annette. He had never seen her look so angry. The closest he had seen were the times she spoke about Gilbert, when her rage would climax before turning to tears. Her features were twisted in the same way now but instead of crying she kissed him. Startled, Felix resisted until he felt his mouth open under hers. When they broke apart, her eyes were moist. “Please don’t leave,” she whispered in a voice so soft that Felix was not sure if she had wanted him to hear. He took advantage of the fact and offered no reply. Instead he kissed her back and tried to ignore the sad, empty pit in his stomach.

They lingered in the cathedral, sitting on the marble floor in spite of the cold because it was the best way to watch the moon and the stars. It was a clear night and Annette seemed able to identify every shape in the sky: one cluster of stars was the Wyvern, another the Pegasus. Felix strained to connect the dots Annette’s fingers drew as they pointed at their window of sky, but her words were too captivating for him to mind. Between accounts she kissed him on his cheek, his chest, and the hand he held hers in. Felix returned each with one of his own; having kissed her once he was desperate for more. He trailed more kisses down her neck when they were back in her dormitory, and even more underneath the satin collar of her nightgown. She made such pretty noises beneath her bedsheets that madness nearly overtook him and he thought to ask her to leave with him. He stifled the idea. Pressing her closer to him until she fell asleep. Even with the warm hum of her breathing against his chest, he felt alone. She would not have kissed him had she known his traitor heart.

After hours spent wrapped in blankets and warm skin, the chill of early spring bit even harder. From Annette’s window he could see the first hint of dawn creeping over the horizon. He would need to act now before the day could break in earnest and weaken his resolve. Rising quietly and quickly from the bed, he groped on the ground for his sword and returned it to its place on his leather belt. Moving about the monastery at night with more weapons would have looked to suspicious, even for someone like Felix; to compensate, he had hidden four hunting daggers in his pocket. His pockets also carried enough gold for a few weeks’ worth of food and shelter at half-decent inns. By then he suspected he would have had little trouble finding work as a mercenary. A mercenary, he thought in disbelief, the struggle to truly accept the idea making him nauseous. He needed to leave before his resolve could weaken further.

Felix spared one glance at Annette’s room before disappearing into the hallway. For as long as he had known her and as often as she slipped into his thoughts he had never found her quite as beautiful as he did now. Nearly all of her was still covered in bedsheets but he could still see her face haloed in red hair. He wished that she had not kissed him almost as much as he wished to hear her sing for him again. He wished he had not kissed her back. Sometimes wrapped in Annette’s arms and sparring with Sylvain he could forget how dutiful they are were and how different he was. Watching Annette from the doorway, it seemed for a moment that the disparity was not insurmountable after all. He remembered Glenn and his father and thought better.

The guards serving night watch outside the gates of Garreg Mach were meant to keep intruders out, but they did well at keeping intruders in too. Felix had done the job himself enough times to know where they were posted, however, and patient enough to wait for the perfect moment to escape. The sun would soon paint the sky in pastels, but darkness shielded Felix long enough for him to pass through the gates and fling himself further still through the last moments of night. He felt both like the boy he had been many years ago and like someone else completely. His hand reached for his sword and he felt stronger at the touch of its hilt. “Don’t look back,” was what Glenn had said once, so Felix did not.


End file.
